Instacart adds delivery of groceries from Berkeley Bowl

BERKELEY -- Grocery delivery startup Instacart on Wednesday added Berkeley Bowl to its lineup, which also include Costco, Whole Foods and Safeway.

The San Francisco-based startup uses personal shoppers to deliver groceries in two hours or less to residents in 10 Bay Area cities, including Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and parts of the Peninsula and South Bay. Customers order groceries online and Instacart picks them up and delivers them for $3.99 each -- order minimum is $35 -- or customers can get unlimited deliveries if they pay $99 for a one-year membership.

Berkeley Bowl, which has stores on Oregon Street and Heinz Avenue, is known for its selection of organic produce, locally sourced meat and all-natural beauty products, with lower prices than health food competitors such as Whole Foods.

"Berkeley Bowl and Costco delivery were the top requests from our East Bay customers," said Instacart Chief Executive Officer Apoorva Mehta.

Mehta, a former Amazon.com engineer, founded the company in 2012. Aided by an $8.5 million Series A funding round from Sequoia Capital in July, the company expanded to Chicago in September, where it delivers in 13 neighborhoods.